Why not?
by Siraminf
Summary: Someone makes a different choice, and some villains take a different path (oneshots)
1. Chapter 1

**Best candidate**

As he watched the towering stacks of paperwork on his desk, Orochimaru wondered why the hell he had wanted to be Hokage, even with all the power the title gave you IT WAS NOT WORTH IT, he used to be a scientist, he had _liked_ performing experiments, discovering new things, learning new jutsus... It had been _years_ since he had been able to do anything like that, and the closest he came to research was searching for the right files for whatever he had to deal with now (and if he ever had the time for it he was going to find out how there could possibly be so much paperwork... His theory was that it was able to reproduce somehow). Now he understood why sensei had been so happy to hand over the hat, and why he had then given him the job when the Yondaime had died sealing the Kyuubi. He also knew that being passed over for the position wasn't because his sensei didn't trust him, as he had thought at the time, no, he had just wanted to spare him from repeating his mistake, Tsunade and Jiraya had been smarter than him, by refusing to even consider taking up the position.

At times like these, when he was submerged by the omnipresent paperwork and those damn elders led by Danzo kept being annoying, he wished that he had never tried to become Hokage, he wished that when he was first passed over for the position he had done something stupid that would make sure he never ended up like this, even being a missing nin had to be better than being Hokage.

As Maito Gai reported to him far too loudly, and he watched out of his window only to see that the Uzumaki boy had covered the Hokage monument in graffiti, for then to run away managing to evade even the ANBU, he once more regretted not being caught about those Mokuton experiments, then his sensei would have been forced to punish him, and he wouldn't be where he was now.

He had tried asking his sensei why he had been elected as Godaime Hokage once, the answer? Well it was something along the lines of "Why not, you and Minato were the two best candidates for becoming the Yondaime, now that he's dead and we need a new Hokage you are the most qualified"

**He got away**

Itachi didn't want to hurt his little brother, but it was necessary, he needed to be motivated to become stronger, and so he applied the henge, to change his appearance to that of the man claiming to be Madara, before going to him. "Tsukuyomi" he showed Sasuke how he had killed the whole clan (still showing himself as 'Madara'), then told him that he only left him alive because it was a well known fact that the Mangekyo Sharingan drove the people using it blind, and so he would need replacement eyes one day.

His little brother dealt with, and the ANBU rapidly approaching he created a Kage Bunshin henged as 'Madara' which fled the village, making sure to be seen but not caught, while he stabbs himself a few times with a kunai to make the whole thing look more realistic.

The next day it was announced to the village that the Uchiha clan had been killed except for the two sons of the clan head. Uchiha Itachi had fought the killer, but despite being a prodigy he was only 13, and had been defeated, and the ANBU had arrived too late, so the killer had gotten away.

**Shortcut**

The Moon's Eye Plan had had yet another setback, as Yagura had been killed without the sanbi being sealed again, thus causing it to disperde. At this rate Akatsuki was never going to accomplish their goals, probably because S-ranked missing nin, by nature, weren't people who worked well with others, the perfect example being Kakuzu, with his habit of killing his partners.

At this rate he would probably be Madara's age by the time they were ready to use the Eternal Tsukuyomi, if they ever were. He remembered his first question about it when Madara had told him about his plan "Does Sharingan genjutsu even work if reflected? Don't you need to look someone directly in the eyes to use it?".

He might not be able to save the whole world, but he was tired of waiting, and wanted to see the people he had lost again, everyone else could manage on their own, and Nagato had his own plans to bring peace, after all. This might be a shortcut, and maybe a rather egoistic one, but he was going to use his Plan B.

And so he went into the bathroom of the base (the nearest place he could think of with a mirror), looked into his own eyes and activated his Mangekyo Sharingan "Tsukuyomi".

"Hey, Itachi! Did you put Tobi in a genjutsu?" "No, why?" "He lies passed out in the bathroom and won't wake up, looks like he is in a genjutsu" "Well, it wasn't me" "So what, did he genjutsu himself? Noone else here is that good at it" "It's the best explanation I can think of"

**Grandpa**

Danzo had finally managed to escape to his study to work, he loved his wife, but at times she really made his life difficult. When he first met her Keiko had been young, beatiful and quite shy, as opposed to her mother, one of the bossiest people he had ever met (he had been terrified of his mother in law, and had to admit he had felt relieved when she finally passed away, no matter how sad his dear Keiko had been), now she was still beatiful, at least in his eyes, what he hadn't considered was that the reason for her meek nature was the presence of her mother, once away from her, and in charge of a family of her own she had become a force to recon with. "Young man, what are you doing! Danzo! How many times must I tell your agents to use the door, not the windows!" "I'm sorry Keiko-sama" "And take off your sandals!" It was hard for his pride to know that his Root operatives were more afraid of disobeying his wife than him "...you look much better Shin ... and how is your little brother doing? ...are you sure you don't want some tea?" He really couldn't understand how, after five children of her own and a veritable tribe of grandchildren she still felt the need to mother his Root agents. But enough musings, he really had to solve this situation with that damn fool Fugaku planning a coup.

Just then one of his grandchildren who had recently started at the Academy came running inside "Grandpa! Look what I can do! Katon: Gokyaku no jutsu" he barely managed to save his paperwork in time "Well done Ryuusui, but perhaps it would be better if you practiced your fire release outside, so that you don't risk burning down the house".

He really had to solve this situation, before Homura or Koharu decided to do something drastic, and the whole clan got killed off, his wife, children and grandchildren included.


	2. Chapter 2

**Passive-aggressive**

The Yondaime Hokage Namikaze Minato looked at the people assembled at the funeral, although probably not all of them because they had liked the deceased. Sarutobi Hiruzen and Uchiha Fugaku, for example, looked like they wanted to dance on his grave, then there were the ones, like Shimura Danzo, who probably wanted to make absolutely certain that he was finally dead, while some just wanted to come to such an historic occasion, after all Uchiha Madara, while less famous, was still one of the village founders. Of course, there were people who would miss him as well, such as his wife Kushina, who was right now talking about how Madara had always encouraged her to be herself when she was a girl (and since he had mostly done that by complimenting her on her pranks, laughing at her victims and offering suggestions for the next one, he felt lucky that Madara had died while his son Naruto was still so young).

As they left after the funeral, he thought he heard the Sandaime saying something that sounded like "You lucky bastard". It was probably true, Madara had been known to make the lives of the previous Hokages hell, he had been one of the Hokage's advisors since the very beginning, but after that first time, with Hashirama, he had never tried to become Hokage, going so far as to refuse vehemently when he had been practically begged to become Hokage after the Nidaime's death, seeing as he had outlived two Hokages and lived to see the third one retire he might have made a good choice, after all, in choosing to avoid the stress. This wasn't to say he wasn't a powerful person, he had always had a lot of influence in the running of the village, and none of the Uchiha's would dare to really oppose him by now, it must be strange for Fugaku to suddenly become clan head, after years of following Madara around, who alternated in between calling him Fugaku-kun and Fugaku-chan, the latter when he thought he was being ridiculous.

Minato certainly had been lucky, not only wouldn't he have to deal with the practically ancient man, but with him gone there was noone who would be oppose him much, at least in the beginning, and he had been the only candidate for the position, as the Sannin, the only other people who might have been considered had all refused, not wanting to have to deal with Madara daily. He had heard that Danzo used to be quite militaristic, and in charge of his own ANBU division, but it was difficult to believe, seeing as now he was something of a nervous wreck, it had started when the training metods of Root had become known, Madara had soundly chewed him out, calling him a foolish little boy and reminding him that they had founded the village to avoid things like this, after that he had never lost an occasion to berate him, he might have been a real bastard, but he had always wanted what was best for the village, making the Hokages miserable was more of a hobby.

In the end he had died peacefully in his own bed, of old age, and even if his physical condition had declined in the end he had been a fearsome opponent to the very last, probably the main reason why nobody had made an effort to kill him before then, they didn't want to risk the consequences if they tried and failed.

**Bullying**

Konan had not been happy when she recognized Akatsuki's newest recruit, she still remembered how Orochimaru had told Jiraya that he should kill Yahiko, Nagato and her.

Nagato seemed to be able to pretend it had never happened, and thought that he would be an useful addition to Akatsuki, and so she wouldn't kill him, like she wanted to, because she trusted his judgement (although there was a small but insistent part of her that said that sane people didn't say they were gods), but she simply wasn't able to pretend it had never happened, there was other ways to make him pay after all... And it helped that she knew every inch of the building, and her jutsu made it really easy for her to get into places.

Orochimaru could have sweared that the building they used as headquarters was haunted, it was that or he was slowly losing his mind, the fact that the furniture in his room was in different positions he could have dismissed as someone moving them as some kind of childish prank, but sometime it seemed to move while he was in the room as well, sleeping, busy with something, or in a few cases he had just turned around for a little. The same happened in his lab, nothing was ever where he thought he had left it, his samples usually turned out to be mislabeled, and his files were switched around.

Then the strange simptoms started, it was never anything serious, and it hadn't interfered with his missions yet, but he experienced bouts of hallucinations, tremors, numbness in various areas of his body, dizziness, and other such things, he suspected that someone might be poisoning him, but couldn't figure out how it happened, he would have asked for help, but if it was poison his partner Sasori was the main suspect, and he didn't trust any of the others enough, the most approachable Akatsuki member seemed to be Konan, but when he had mentioned his problems the way she had asked if he was still capable of performing his duties had suggested that he had better be, or he would be useless to them.

After joining Akatsuki Itachi had been surprised when he first met Orochimaru, the man was one of Konoha's most known and feared missing nin, but life outside of the village had obviously not agreed with him, the once fearsome shinobi was thin, pale, sickly looking, and his behaviour made him think he was a nervous wreck, the fact that he was barefoot, and was muttering something about how he was certain that he had left the sandals next to the door didn't help.

Then Konan, the organization's only female member, approached him "You are good at genjutsu, right?" Her smile was just a little too presatory, but he told her that yes, it was his specialty "Good, I have a job for you". Said job turned out to be using subtle genjutsu on Orochimaru at random times, without getting noticed, to make him think he was going mad, he hadn't expected to be recruited to bully another member, but he wasn't even the only one, he knew that at least Sasori was in on it as well.

Jiraya had been keeping an eye out for Orochimaru for years, angry for his betrayal, but when he met him again he couldn't keep hating him, he looked like a wreck, he seemed really ill, and was far from the aloof, slightly arrogant person he remembered him as, and when his first words had been a slightly desperate "Jiraya? Are you real? I'm not mad, I'm not! Whatever they say, it's just the voices in the walls, I'm not mad am I? The voices are really there, aren't they?" He decided he was taking his former teammate back to Konoha, he obviously needed help "OK, Orochimaru, I'm real, and what do you say about coming back to Konoha with me?" "Sounds good, I hate Akatsuki, and putting a genjutsu on the moon is a dumb plan anyway".

**Not worth it**

"Zabuza-sama, are you certain about this?" "Zabuza-sama, isn't it a bit hipocritical to oppress another country to get funds to stop the oppression of ours?" "Zabuza-sama, the people here have nothing left to live of!" "Zabuza-sama, I don't think Gato intends to pay us once we have finished" "Zabuza-sama, Gato is on his way to become as bad as Yagura"

Zabuza was getting tired of listening to Haku's complaints about their current job, and if he had to be honest with himself he even agreed with most of it, so when he found out that Tazuna had hired a team of shinobi, led by Kakashi of the Sharingan, he decided that this was his chance to get out of it with his reputation intact. He sent Haku to steal the majority of Gato's money, while he went to talk to the shinobi from Konoha, to tell them where to find Gato and how to get into his base with minimum risk, it helped that Haku was going to poison most of the guards as well.

"Why should I believe what you are telling me?" "Why not? Not that it makes much of a difference, I'm out of here anyway, the pay might be OK, but it's not worth it to having to listen to Haku complaining all the time"

**For your own good**

Konan seemed a little uncertain "Nagato, are you certain that you're OK? I mean, I know that Yahiko's death was really traumatic..." "Don't worry, I'm fine, and we will be able to change things"

She let it go for a while, Nagato seemed to be coping with what had happened, even if changing his name to Pain didn't seem like such a logical solution to her, but when he declared himself a god she knew she had to act.

She doubted that a civilian psychologist would be much help, and Ame didn't have anyone like Konoha's Yamanaka clan, but she knew she could find a solution to that.

"What kind of mission is that? Why does Ame need a Yamanaka with experience in dealing with trauma, survivor's guilt and people with delusions of grandeur?" "No idea, but they are paying it as an S-ranked mission, are assuring us that there should be no risks, and are allowing us to send as many shinobi as we want to, not to mention that they are supposed to be our allies"

"What's the meaning of all this?" "It's for your own good, Nagato, you can say whatever you want, but sane people don't declare themselves gods, you need help, professional help, which is why he's here, so now you are going to be reasonable and get the help you obviously need, powerful eyes or not"


	3. Chapter 3

**Herbicide**

Zetsu couldn't understand how this had happened, he seemed to be... Wilting was probably the best description, even connecting himself to the statue hadn't really helped, and his spores didn't seem to work anymore, since it had started whenever he had tried creating clones they were even weaker than he was, if he managed to make them at all, and dividing into his two halves hadn't helped at all.

Worst of all, he had no idea how it had happened: a jutsu? A drawback inherent in the way he had been created? Poison?

He felt horrible, even working in his greenhouse didn't manage to make him feel better, if anything it made him feel worse.

It wasn't until he collapsed while working with his plants, and saw the jar that held the cause of his death that he realized what had happened. Maybe asking Sasori to make an herbicide that was as effective as possible hadn't been such a good idea after all, no matter how stubborn those weeds were.

**Clumsy**

Madara couldn't understand how it was possible, it should be almost impossible to disrupt a Sharingan genjutsu, and being a jinkuuriki shouldn't help Yagura, because the genjutsu affected the Sanbi as well, actually, the Sanbi was still affected, it was the Mizukage who kept getting out of the genjutsu, he didn't know how long he could keep this going, he had to reapply the genjutsu to control him almost every day, and had no idea how it could happen, it was one thing if he was in a fight and got seriously hurt, as in that case the pain might be responsible for disrupting the genjutsu, but nothing had happened lately, he did mostly paperwork, and he seriously doubted that a papercut was enough, he didn't even react to them if they happened at all.

In the end he decided it wasn't worth it, he was wasting his chakra and time, and he couldn't proceed with his other plans if he couldn't leave Kiri because he had to reapply the genjutsu on Yagura every morning.

Yagura swore as he stumbled out of bed, it was embarassing for a Kage to be this clumsy in the morning, perhaps he should move that little table somewhere else, even if he always felt more clearheaded and awake after stubbing his toe on it in the morning it was terribly painful.

**Auctioned off**

They all agreed that recruiting Kakuzu to Akatsuki wasn't such a good idea as it had seemed to. Yes, he was an S ranked missing nin, yes, he was a really experienced bounty hunter, probably the most experienced there was in the Elemental countries, yes, after he had started taking care of their organization's finances they were doing much better economically. The problem was that he seemed unable to kill his partners and avoid pissing off the rest. Others might think that the worst part was his habit of killing his partners, taking their hearts and cashing in their bounty, but that wasn't it, after the first time it happened Pain had taken it into account when choosing his partners, they might be S ranked missing nin, but the ones partnered with Kakuzu were not ones he really cared to keep in the organization for long, they were considered expendable, and at least he put their bounty in Akatsuki's funds. The real problem was his habit of selling other people's possessions to make money, such as Orochimaru's lab equipment or Sasori's puppets or tools, not to mention random pieces of furniture from their bases.

The problem came when one day the statue they were going to use to store the chakra of the biju disappeared.

"What do you mean you auctioned it off?" "I mean that I sold it to the person offering most money, do you have any idea how much some people are willing to pay for an ancient statue?"


End file.
